What Only We See
by Twindiewalks
Summary: A series of GSR one shots from Series 5 of how their relationship could have begun.
1. Chapter 1 Committed

**Title:** What They Never See

**Summary:** A series of One shots accounting how Sara and Grissom's relationship developed, set from "Committed" Season 5.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters or the show.

**A/N:** This is actually my first fan fic in a long time, my first CSI fic and my first on this site. I'm writing as I publish so feedback would be really appreciated. It's generally a series of oneshots that could almost be viewed as deleted scenes, after I was fascinated to find how GSR developed without the audience knowing.

This is my first attempt, set after the scene where Sara claims Adam would be better off without his mother being alive. For me, it seemed the obvious place for the relationship to actually start for the both of them, after encountering a danger like in the episode. I hope you enjoy it! Reviews would be most helpful and really appreciated.

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><p><strong>"Committed"<strong>

Sara walked away from the interview room, the clack of her heels echoing across the corridor underneath the hubbub of the lab as others walked past her. The other members of the team were busy in their own cases that had preoccupied them whilst she and Grissom had been working Robbie's case, any members casting her a quick smile of recognition as they tore about their work. The dark corridors, with the artificial light scratching at the burnished surface of the floor, reminded her of the institute, with its clinical feel and clinical workings. The whole time she was there she felt at risk, surrounded by insecure people. It struck her as ironic; to feel so uncomfortable somewhere like where her mother had lived, when in theory, a mother was the one person you're meant to feel safest with.

"Crazy people make me feel crazy." She had said. She knew that was true but in her line of work, she often encountered people she would consider crazy, even if the textbooks would argue otherwise.

Cases like these, where she could almost see herself in the situations framed by her horrific past, freaked her out. Violence was violence, it happened everywhere in so many forms, but recently, everything seemed a reflection of her past. Vulnerability was never acceptable in CSI; they were there to be unbiased and meticulous. Retaining her emotions made her feel false, and drained. Her hand crept to the sinewy line of her neck, her fingertips tracing where Adam had threatened her. Physically, there were no marks on her skin but mentally, it was another scar on her bruised life.

She needed some rest but at the same time, sitting alone in her house wasn't preferable for her now. Her ghosts were hanging around her, sleeping would be impossible and recently casual past times such as television seemed to be unable to distract her from her own torment. Of course she had a recent forensic paper that Greg had lent her to read, but in truth, she felt safer where she was. The lab was familiar with its busy offices that were constantly switching samples and evidence, she could possibly occupy herself here, find a case to help on, it was midday now and the lab was as occupied as it always was. New York was not the only city that never slept, as Sara was all too aware. There was always an open case somewhere, and nothing took her mind off her own life like pulling apart the threads of someone else's to get answers.

Pausing at her decision to find some work, then spinning on her heel, she made her way back to Grissom's office. She passed where Mia was working; Nick pressing her for some results from the case Catherine's team was working. This was why she loved CSI; it was never quiet or eerie like that institution with its single file inmates and strict routine. She reached Grissom's office, where he was just settling down to paperwork, a job he had expressed less than enthusiasm for, as she entered and leant on his doorframe. Sara paused to watch him, busying himself at his perfectly organised desk, shifting jars of botanical and bizarre looking experiments out of his way, before he had noticed her.

"Anywhere you need me?" she offered, light-heartedly.

"Sara..." Grissom started, placing a folder down on his desk and resting on his hands, supporting his weight along his broad shoulders.

"I saw that Warrick is still interviewing the suspect from the double shooting earlier, I could chase the trace results he's after, or I could help Greg out with his hit-and-run case, or you, I know I could help you out." she continued unrelentingly, hoping to persuade Grissom with her enthusiasm that she was fine to continue her work this evening, especially as he knew how tough a day she'd had. Or maybe to persuade herself. However, his quiet interjections of "Sara" as she spoke suggested otherwise. He paused and shook his head.

"Sara, go home." Grissom said simply, his steady unwavering voice suggesting this was not a request, rather a casual demand. She opened her mouth to protest but suspected that there was no point and closed it again. "You're obviously exhausted; you've had a rough day."

Sara could see he was concerned, even though any change within Grissom was difficult to detect. She knew him well, and she was a CSI after all, even though he was flicking through a file in a nonchalant manner and rarely meeting her gaze. Still, she understood that Grissom always protected his team. His bond with the entire group was evident, and even though she had felt distanced from Grissom since he promoted Nick over her, sharing her secret with him had made her feel included again. One of the team.

Since that, watching him today at the window of the station, hands pressed against the glass, she could see his need to protect her, tangible between them. Whether he knew she was mentally susceptible in a place like that because of her past or whether it was just Grissom's instinct to protect his team, Sara's gut still strained like hunger pains at the memory of Grissom's unwavering panic-restrained stare, his hands pressed against the glass straining to save her. Although when they did break in, Grissom stayed in the corridor, leaving the restraint to the experts. Typically Grissom, he stayed within the boundaries of his role despite his emotions.

So why didn't he understand that being alone was something she wanted to avoid? She'd stood there earlier that day and told him why she saw her own ghosts in that place; he knew that it was all on the surface for her. She wanted him to just accommodate her, to understand and to take her mind off everything. That's what her job could do, and it was always what Grissom managed to do.

"I don't need sleep" Sara attempted to argue.

"O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse." Grissom quoted. His way of finding evidence when there was no crime scene, to reference the literary world.

"Shakespeare?" Sara queried, partly infuriated at his aloof response to her situation but more endeared at his love of the arts. That was just part of Grissom, where you could see where he had once existed outside of his job which now was his entire life.

"Of course. Henry IV part 2 actually." Grissom informed her, as if knowing the source of his argument would convince her further. Then he suggested "You should try some, Shakespeare's always very engaging. I find his insight into human nature remarkable and even more remarkable how human's never change. No matter how many changes in technology, how many weapons we make, Shakespeare's account of humanity always rings true."

"I doubt Shakespeare ever wrote about mental institutions." Sara sighed, collapsing limply onto the chair across his desk, tired again of skirting around the issue that they were both aware of. Grissom's passion was admirable; she wished she had the intelligence of the man, a scientific thinker engorged on literature. It was just another thing that made him the man she based her work on, she had always modelled herself on Grissom's way of working, being entirely logical and never overlooking anything. Unlike Grissom however, she seemed to be finding it increasingly difficult to be unbiased in her work.

"On the contrary, Shakespeare seems fascinated with the mentally insecure. Lady Macbeth is insane by the time she takes her life, racked with guilt by her actions. Some argue that Hamlet is mad, driving himself to murder at his own theories, then Ophelia, she goes mad with grief at the murder of her father..." Grissom's words slowed then trailed off as he realised the similarities to Sara, dropping his eyes from her, the words stinging her consciousness. Is that what was happening to her, was she losing herself from the grief of that murder she'd witnessed as a child?

Grissom laughed shortly, not from amusement but bitterly. She knew he could tell what she was thinking.

"Sara, you can't compare yourself to everyone else that has experiences like yours." Grissom told her, his voice softening, moving from his large office chair to sit on the chair adjacent to her. Sara was always acutely aware of the distance, or lack of distance, between them, even proximity like this made her senses peak to her own embarrassment. Her affection for Grissom had been suppressed but at times, she infuriatingly couldn't prevent it.

The tension became even more evident, with Sara's eyes flickering to where his hand rested on the arm rest near to her elbow, with his gaze unfaltering, his blue irises sparking in the harsh artificial light reflecting off his glasses. She examined him rapidly, his broad shoulders, smart dress and dark hair peppered with distinguished sheen of his gracious age. She had thought about how he looked for so many years, spending every day with him meant that she often forgot, and it was moments like this that she saw what had attracted her to him all those years ago.

"Why did you bother?" Sara asked him suddenly.

"Bother with what?" Grissom wondered, clearly confused.

"Finding out. About me...about my life, before".

It was a question that had plagued her ever since he'd come to her house, defying Ecklie and stepping what she saw as beyond the line of work. For it was true that Grissom cared about all of his team, or what had been his team, but the tenderness and concern he had expressed that day had seemed beyond that. She hadn't dared to think that but now, she decided she wanted to know where they stood. They'd zigzagged between colleagues and friends and maybe more and she was tired of feeling confused in the one place where she spent her time solving puzzles. It was time to solve this one.

"I told you. I care." Grissom told her simply, standing and moving back to his original seat. Instantly, the sensation between them was severed, Sara could feel his defences remerging. Sara watched him, feeling her rising frustration and exasperation. This was typical Grissom, when it came to his own life that's what it was, logic that worked in circles and baffled everyone that tried to get through to his emotions.

He sighed, putting his head in his hands. "I'm tired too Sara." He stated, clearly attempting to end the discussion. "I need to file this case as quick as possible and then go and get some sleep. Greg's capable with tying up the loose ends of his own case. Like I said, you need rest."

Sara watched him gather his papers and stand to leave, waiting by the door for Sara to follow. He beckoned to suggest her exit but she relentlessly wouldn't move, staring blankly at the desk.

"I don't get you Grissom." She said finally, standing up and approaching him. "I mean, since I started here all those years ago, it's like I think you want one thing and then you turn around and seem to say the opposite." She began pacing, cutting off anything that Grissom was trying to say, her anger and confusion escalating beyond her normal levels of restriction. "I ask you out, you say no, you then tell that Lurie guy that you can't risk your career and I think that's for me, but then I tell myself it can't be. Then you start becoming like, this figure who I am meant to rely on and then you switch back to being my boss in a matter of hours, so what the hell am I meant to think? Do Catherine and Sophia have this kind of bond with you, am I being egotistical to assume I've got special treatment?"

"Sara-" Grissom tried to interrupt her, leaning towards her, his arm hovering near her, close enough for her hairs to sense him but not quite touching her, boundaries undefined.

"No, it's like, one minute everything seems clear and I know where I stand and the next you uproot it, you alter totally without me receiving any notification of what's going on or what you're thinking," Sara continued. She was rolling now, her entire mixed up history of feeling and not feeling for Grissom all the hope and confusion and hurt streaming out of her mouth in an unstoppable torrent, like when she got rolling on the hypothesises in crimes, but now it was her own experiences. "I just think sometimes, you should update me, you know, hint at me what I'm supposed to be doing, how I'm meant to be acting with you, how I'm meant to..." her voice slowed as Grissom came to face her with piercing eyes, listening to the words that she suddenly realised were raw, too raw, her soul exposed. "...feel about you." Sara finished finally.

She could see Grissom studying her closely. He was so close to her face she could feel his breath, he studied her features in what expression, bemusement? Anger? Confusion? Sara couldn't tell, he avoided her eye line whilst being able to see her better than she'd felt anyone ever see her. Still, she felt that she'd overstepped the mark of what was acceptable for a subordinate and a supervisor. She thought back to what she heard Grissom tell Lurie, about not risking his career for her. She wasn't worth the risk, so why did she risk everything for him?

"I never told you how to feel Sara." Grissom eventually mumbled, breaking the silence. His blue eyes crept to meet hers, holding them unrelentingly. He sounded defensive.

"I know Grissom." Sara replied steely. "That's the point."

Grissom was exhausted. Cases were always tiring but the worst ones were in environments like that institution. The very air in the place seemed laced with fear and exhaustion, exhaustion at the monotony of the place. He would need to file paperwork on the case, it was getting lighter outside. He'd wanted to get out today, he had errands to run but more than anything, he wanted to sleep. Then Sara appeared at his door, enquiring about having a new case to work.

She was being ridiculous, Grissom knew. She had already worked a double shift to solve this case with him, and it had been more than harrowing for her. Seeing her in a place that stirred up her inner torment changed her, Grissom could feel her tension and her strain, occasionally her eyes would unfocus as she studied something. He knew, of course, that she just wanted to be busy but he couldn't, as her supervisor, allow her to stay longer when she wasn't needed. He was afraid for her, afraid that if this carried on, she was going to burn-out, breakdown or do as she had before and expend all her emotion on those in authority. Next time, he wasn't sure he'd been able to support her so much.

He tried to evade her demands, pleas in disguise, tried to convince her that she would be better off going home to sleep. He unintentionally stumbled onto her past in his argument with Shakespeare, a mistake he mentally kicked himself for, she wanted to help her forget not go in full circle. He was exhausted, and every time he got involved with Sara emotionally he felt like he was walking a tightrope between them, trying to help her without embroiling himself with her, tangling his own emotions in. Then she asked why he had ever bothered.

Why had he bothered? How could he even begin to explain why he cared so much about her mental stability, about her in general? He always cared about his work colleagues, they were like his family, but Sara, Sara was something else. He admired her, her efficiency in the field, her independence and her devotion to the job. She was an excellent CSI and as a woman too, she was confident and strong. Yet recently, seeing her suffering, tormented, did not make him stop his admiration, but care about her even more. He wanted to help her, and not having someone that understood her past at work was the very thing that had caused her argument with Catherine and Ecklie, so he made it important to understand.

"I told you. I care," he explained. He'd said that to her the day he'd visited her at home, when he'd uncovered her history with her. It didn't really mean much in theory, but he hope she knew that it meant he truly did care. He did care, more than he cared about other people he met, encountered, worked with. More than almost anyone he'd ever met. He didn't want her to know that but at the same time, he wanted to know that someone cared, someone was willing to back her up and support her through a difficult time in her life. CSI was full of difficult times.

Grissom sighed. He didn't want to confuse Sara anymore if he could help it, he suspected she was becoming aware of his own internal struggle with his feelings for her. He began to gather up his papers, slotting his photos and files into the folder, reading to report back to Ecklie, who had expressed his concern at the news of the violence Sara had experienced. Gil hoped he could avoid the issue of Sara that was developing by making himself busy, then finally going home and getting some rest. He was looking forward to reading Joseph Conrad, which lay half-read on his nightstand.

"I'm tired too Sara. I need to file this case as quick as possible and then go and get some sleep. Greg's capable with tying up the loose ends of his own case. Like I said, you need rest."

She did need rest, she looked drained and tired. Still pretty though, Grissom thought to himself. She was always pretty, with her short gently curling hair and inquisitive brown eyes that always looked like she was curious about something. She was effortless, almost serene to Grissom. He always wondered how women that did jobs like Sara's could find the time to look as lovely as she did, and he wondered now as he made his way to the door, hoping to end the awkward morning they'd both had.

Sara instead spoke, ""I don't get you Grissom." She stood up and began to walk towards him, and he watched her, listening to her intently. She was talking, or rather, interrogating him, about what he'd been playing at for the last 5 years. She'd finally snapped, had enough of his bipolar ways. What he did expect, he asked himself, as he listened to her questioning him about what he'd been up to? Then she mentioned Lurie, what he'd told him, god knows how Sara even heard that or knew it was about her but still, that was something he was ashamed of. It was him admitting that he couldn't bring himself to put himself out on a limb to be with her. In truth, he'd messed her around all this time with his own struggle against his feelings, he thought as she paced and finally came to approach him at the door.

"...how I'm meant to feel about you." Sara finished her exasperated rant, her voice melting away as Grissom fixed his eyes on her. He didn't dare to think about it, what Sara did feel. Once upon a time he was confident, certain even, that she felt the same affection that she did but back then, she was a young woman with a lot to understand about what it meant to be a CSI. Now, he was faced with the same beautiful young woman but laced with a history that made her complex and even more important to him than he would have ever anticipated when their friendship began.

"I never told you how to feel." Grissom said, offended that Sara felt manipulated by Grissom as if he'd intentionally confused her over their friendship. All he'd hoped to avoid was her realising his inner conflict, now it was clear he'd been awful at doing that. Maybe that was what made her so irresistible, that she was the one person he was incapable of hiding his feelings from.

How he'd hoped to avoid all of this, whilst at the same time making it inevitable. Suppressing his feelings was natural, instinctive for Gil. It was necessary with what he did, it had always been necessary for him to get by, even from when his father died. Suppressing his feelings for Sara had seemed achievable; hoping that with a manoeuvre away from an intimate friendship early on could ensure Sara would never be disillusioned about them.

Yet, that hadn't worked. He couldn't prevent himself from reaching out to her. Sure, when the team was working effectively, he could treat her like any of the others but recently watching her contest with her own past made him reach out to her. Instinctively, he felt compelled to not just protect her, but comfort her and nurture her. He'd lost sight long ago of what he was trying to stop himself doing. He'd made out he couldn't bring himself to risk his career and his lifestyle, but now it was like he couldn't bring himself to not to risk it. It had never been a question of whether Sara was worth it.

"I know Grissom. That's the point," he heard Sara say to him. The hurt in her voice was evident, the hurt he'd only tried to avoid.

He'd got this very wrong. Sara had seen, felt, with him, every emotional turn he had made over the past 5 years, the very thing he'd tried to conceal from even himself. She'd felt him soften towards her recently, seen the hellish fear he'd felt earlier that day. Watching that man threaten her life, with him trapped on the other side of the glass, unable to save her himself. Sometimes, he even wished he could fire her, get her away from CSI, get her away from all the dangers his team faced and just keep her safe. But he always stopped himself. Anyway, taking away her job would destroy her. She was just like him.

Grissom couldn't avert his eyes from her. The amber pain from her eyes that seared through into him, she wanted answers, like always. This time, he'd have to find them himself, with no crime scene to process, just his own decision that he'd been attempting to avoid for fear of facing it.

His arm crept from where it had lent on the doorframe, Gil aware of every inch it moved towards her. His fingertips dusted her palm and she flinched away slightly but he persevered. He could feel her trembling, for once he could physically sense her emotion instead of watching her battle them. It made him want to take her and hold her tightly, but the whole situation was so tense, every movement felt momentous. He could hear her breathing, as he slipped his fingers into the perfectly shaped space between hers. Slowly, her hand responded, moulding around his. He'd held her hand before, but this was different. He could feel her entire body next to him, her rising and falling breaths, her body temperature.

"Feel like this." Grissom whispered. "Feel exactly as you feel right now."

Grissom could feel his own heart pounding against his chest but he sought to retain himself. How he'd wanted her for so long and now, he'd made the decision. He could feel his own terror; he couldn't read in Sara's dumbfounded expression what she was thinking. Her skin was warm to the touch, from her heated expression moments before but he was conscious that his own hands were moist with the nerves he wished her to not see. He wanted to kiss her. She was inches away from his face, the woman who had induced feelings in him that he had laboured over for years, whose emotional hardships had tormented him as he watched them torment her.

Yet he stopped himself. He couldn't tell what Sara was feeling or thinking, whether her anger had genuinely subsided or whether she was simply shocked at him. Still, it was true. Whether she felt as he did, at this tiny connection between them, reeling with happiness and electricity and uncertainty, or whether she knew finally that he wasn't worth the risk, he wanted the uncertainty she had complained of to end. Even as he made this move, as he exerted himself he still felt the compulsion to move away

He loosened his grip and moved away, the ignition between their hands fading. Sara glanced down at his hands, as if to make sure she had not imagined him being to study her, knowing that she might never physically be as close to him as she was right now, he turned and walked away. His pulse slowed and he attempted to return to the normal retained man that was Grissom, whilst his entire emotional existence hung in the balance, standing at his office door, watching him walk away.


	2. Chapter 2 Grave Danger

A/N: Another update. I thought it better to continue according to the actual episodes rather than the oneshots, so they interlink with the programme more obviously. I do really try and keep as true to the characters as possible, so hopefully all their dialogue will actually seem true to them. Thank you for all the feedback, it's thrilling to know people enjoyed the first chapter, any more would be hugely appreciated.

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><p>"<strong>Grave Danger" <strong>

"I want my guys back." Grissom stated his voice quiet and subdued after the frantic shouting and the panic of what had just occurred. Yet, this understated request held no less emotion than the previous action. Nearly losing Nick was too real, blindingly too real for the team, too real for Grissom. It was having a divided team that left Nick in danger, and it was with only the whole team they had managed to find him. Grissom was not ready to take a risk like that ever again, not with any member of the team.

Ecklie bowed his head and walked away from the team that left watching the ambulance lights that they could still see dipping and diving over the highway road into the distance. At least when push came to shove, Gil knew he could rely on Ecklie. He was no doubt heaving a mass of cases and press away from the team whilst they dealt with the search and rescue. Nick was in safe hands now, and as much as the whole team wanted to pour into the ambulance and travel back with him, Gil understood now that Catherine was his supervisor and that Warrick was his best friend, and they were the ones to stay with him.

The atmosphere was subdued, the elation of managing to rescue Nick undercut by their fear of what could have happened. If he'd have not made it, Grissom hadn't allowed himself to think about it whilst they had been looking for him, but now the very idea of finding Nick's body underneath that dirt, or worse never finding him at all, tore at his consciousness. Nick's body as it was, breathless, bitten and battered, was terrifying, seeing how close they had come to failure. This would not be like any failure before, it would not mean the failure of the system to put a criminal behind bars, it would have meant the death of Nick who they could have saved. Gil knew the group were all painfully aware of this.

Eventually Brass broke the silence just before the lights disappeared into the dust clouds, standing in the line with Gil, Sara and Greg. He needed his team like this, united when they needed to be. He should not have let them be split up. Even though it was illogical, a part of him blamed himself for this whole ordeal, perhaps he could've made sure that Nick had been spared this.

"I'll drive to the hospital if anyone needs a lift." He offered simply, beckoning to his car, his voice low and solemn. Brass understood as well as they all did, that they needed to see that Nick was entirely okay.

Greg nodded, and broke the line. "I'm going to head down with Brass" he declared. Grissom nodded, still staring bluntly at the road where they had come.

"We'll see you there." Sara mumbled to him, as they both headed off towards Brass's car.

"I'll take Sanders then." Brass finished, attempting to sound cheerful as Grissom could hear the sound of the car doors opening and closing as the two men headed out along the track in the wake of the ambulance, echoing over the noises of officers checking the scene and dealing with the nursery workers. Gil was stood next to Sara, irrelevant against the swarm of officers and workers behind him. Processing the scene was irrelevant; the man who had done it was dead. Gil knew to leave the officers to it. He needed to get to Nick too.

"Come on," he muttered gently to Sara, taking her by the elbow. "I'll drive." He nodded to one of the vehicles. She nodded, dazed apparently and they made their way to the car, Gil taking the driver's seat. He shut the door behind him and leant briefly on the steering wheel, rubbing his eyes for a second. He knew it wasn't his mistake, but he felt that, if he had been a more effective supervisor in the face of Ecklie, then his team would never have been split up and somehow that would have kept Nick from this. He then shook the thoughts from his head and put the key in the ignition, hearing the car rumble to life.

Briefly, he glanced across at Sara. She was staring blankly out of the window, fiddling with her gun holster absent-mindedly. He could almost see the adrenaline that had be coursing through her draining away, leaving her pale and agonised, with dirt smudges on her face, neck, hands and clothes from the explosion. Even in the state she was, she was beautiful. He always flirted casually with women but his social life was limited and the appearance of women was fairly irrelevant in his line of work, it was only Sara who he could really appreciate, she was beautiful to him inside and out. He'd hardly seen her except in a professional environment for weeks, now that they were alone he was increasingly aware of his vulnerability with her. The longer they stayed as colleagues, the more he felt that his move in the office had been misplaced and the more he suspected that Sara was avoiding their relationship, in the hope that it would blow over. She had told him by the time he figured it out he would be too late. He was crushingly fearful that he now was.

Despite that, he reached across and softly squeezed her knee, a gesture that he felt was friendly whilst giving him the physical contact with Sara that he always craved the minute he saw her emotions. She looked across at him inquisitively with that expression he loved that she always wore.

"Good job," he said to her simply, smiling weakly at her. She smiled shortly back at him. "Finding that connection to Kelly's job, that saved Nick's life." It was true; he wasn't attempting to flatter her. He had been remarkably proud of her as a CSI in making that connection, the definitive fact that secured their ability to rescue Nick. She was exceptional at her work; there was no question of it. Grissom never really told her how proud he was of her, of all of his CSIs, but he hoped she knew.

"Thanks, it's just my job." She replied shortly, then paused and spoke up, "Although, I'd say your trick with the digger was the best move. Otherwise we could have lost him whilst we were standing there."

Grissom nodded slightly. The very thought of seeing Nick suffer like that in front of them, or losing members of his team in the process of his rescue, it shook his insides. He never had the pride in his own decisions, like Sara said, it was just his job. Watching any of his team in danger tore into him, making sure they were safe was essential to him. Which reminded him of where they were going, and he took the wheel and turned out away from the gathering of police and their bright alert lights, heading along in the direction of the Valley Hospital.

"And the species of ant was what gave me something to work with." Sara continued to point out as the truck sped along the highway towards the bright lights of the city centre. "Without that, we'd still be going on just the signal Archie traced."

"It was luck they weren't just any other ant." Grissom replied. The realisation that he had found a lead that could pin-point Nick's location had been energizing, with the entire team mobilising every fact they had to identify where Nick lay dying. Watching the whole lab's efforts coming together over that map had been masked by the fear and the urgency of the situation, but now in hindsight, Grissom could really appreciate the skill and effectiveness of his team. Every single one of them had been essential, a well-oiled machine of interlinking cogs that had saved Nick's life. And now the heat had subsided, he could let them realise how effective they had been.

"It was luck that Kelly told me she used to work in horticulture." Sara retaliated.

Gil sighed. "I guess we were lucky then."

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><p>3 hours later, Catherine, Greg and Sara walked out across the car park of the hospital. They had waited for Nick's health assessments, and the verdict that doctors wished to keep him over night to treat him for obvious concerns, like dehydration and basic trauma as well as treatment of the fillibration he was experiencing due to the ant bites. Warrick had insisted he would stay but after the nurse had frequently pressed for Nick to be allowed to rest, the others had reluctantly departed. Brass had been called back into work, whilst receiving a call from Ecklie informing them that they could all take the night to catch up on sleep. None of the team had slept since Nick's kidnapping and only now were they all becoming aware of their own exhaustion. Sara felt her very limbs were heavier than usual, and her eyelids even more so as he heavy feet dragged across the gravelled car park.<p>

Nick had been propped up on his bed, semi-conscious for most of the time. The staff had managed to clean most of the dirt residue from him, leaving the ghastly wields from the ants visible from under his hospital gown. Sara hated to see him so vulnerable and drained of life, Nick had always reminded her of a puppy, with unyielding energy and optimism. She knew all the other CSIs felt the same at seeing him like that, as they had when watching the webcam. He was so strong for surviving this, but they all knew that there would be long term impacts of this ordeal, that he would never quite see the world exactly the same again. As maybe they wouldn't either.

Grissom had hung back for a moment to speak to Mr and Mrs Stokes in private, who had been waiting for them when they reached the hospital, after they had been kept up-to-date by officers at the scene. They had both been sincerely grateful to the whole team, with Mr Stokes expressing that he could not have wished for a better selection of friends and colleagues for his son. Sara had felt deeply proud for the whole team that they had managed to find Nick, but in truth, the relief was far more prominent. As always she felt a pang of sadness too, that if she was ever in Nick's situation, she would have no parents to beg the team to save her. She knew they would not need begging of course, but when she realised how much of her life was dedicated to her work she craved the family that would love her no matter how many hours she spent in the lab.

"Well we've had a hell of a day" Catherine said shortly, stopping next to Grissom's car and leaning there. "I need a good night's sleep. Back to work in the morning."

"Same, I've forgotten what my apartment looks like," Greg responded, resting his head on the car door and standing in silence for a moment. "Come on Grissom, we want to go home!" he complained, looking back to the luminous automatic doors where Grissom would soon come from.

Every minute seemed to drag now they weren't counting down, now that it didn't mean less chance of finding Nick, they seemed long and drawn-out and unimportant. Time had been indispensible just a few hours before, and now, as the sky was beginning to lighten as the dawn grew closer and closer, they had stopped worrying. It was refreshing Sara found now, that they weren't balancing on a knife edge. She was used to tension and deadlines with cases, but this time, the price of their failure would have been much higher.

Suddenly, the car bleeped announcing it had been unlocked, and the trio looked to see Grissom approaching steadily. He reached them and headed around to the driver door. "Shall we?" he invited them and they piled in. According to rank, Catherine took the front seat next to Grissom but Sara was glad to realise that from where they were, Catherine and Greg's places would be first on their route. Not that she expected anything, but since the day at the institution they had spent little time together and the tension was palpable between them the moment they were distracted from their case. She met his gaze in his mirror and she smiled weakly, before he quickly glanced back to his driving.

Right now, Sara didn't exactly want to make some kind of move on Grissom, it seemed sordid and distasteful considering what had just happened. What she really wanted was comfort, and to offer some comfort to Grissom too. Even if it was just a conversation before she got home, it would help. They had both faced losing their father as young children, which always made the risks of losing another family member so terrifying they could not just sweep it aside, and Nick was family.

The car journey was undertaken in silence apart from the Led Zeppelin CD that was playing from the stereo, they were all so tired. They all knew what the others were thinking, how unbelievably relieved they all were and trying to stop themselves from thinking what could have happened had a single piece of evidence gone missing from their rescue. Except Greg, Greg was asleep, so Sara doubted he was thinking of very much. His face was slumped unattractively against the window, soft but audible snores emanating from his open mouth causing Sara to laugh quietly to herself. She watched the lights of the city increase and become more extravagant as they moved closer to the city centre, whizzing past the window, making her pupils dilate and her head ache.

Catherine left first at her suburban home, wishing them all good night, thanking Grissom for the lift and making an effort to stay as quiet as possible to save waking Greg.

"Good work tonight, all of you," Catherine added, opening the door quickly again, and smirking seeing that Greg hardly heard.

Grissom nodded. "You too." She smiled weakly and headed up her steps to her home, eagerly heading to her bed and then to spend her breakfast with her daughter before returning to the lab. Grissom waited to see her into the house, with a small wave, before he pulled away. His care for his team was heightened obviously, even with the threat passed. Sara found it endearing. Eventually they pulled up to Greg's apartment block. Grissom turned around to stir Greg but Sara put her finger to her lips cheekily and hopped out of her car door as quietly as possible.

She walked around the side of the car, to Greg's door. She opened it suddenly, making Greg jump and almost drop out of the car. Grissom laughed audibly, one of Sara's favourite sounds and she smirked at him, as Greg glanced around, disorientated. He took a moment to gather where he was, mumbling confusedly to himself.

"Home Greg!" Gil chirped, nodding his head towards the apartments, an unremarkable block in a fairly decent neighbourhood close enough for Greg to walk to the lab when he needed. Most of the CSIs had never met Greg at his home, but they'd often dropped him at home. He looked blankly at Grissom for a moment then understood what he was being told and what Sara had done.

Greg glared briefly at Sara, and hopped out of the car. "Thanks Grissom. I'll...erm, see you in the lab tomorrow then?" he asked, clearly embarrassed.

"As always." Sara confirmed, patting him affectionately on the shoulder, as he began to head towards his apartment. "Night Greg!" she shouted, still amused at his reaction.

"Night Sara," he replied begrudgingly, then waved at Grissom. "Thanks Grissom."

Sara laughed as Greg disappeared into the foyer of the building, walking around the front of the car to the passenger seat. She dipped her head and sat down, buckling her seatbelt casually as Grissom pulled away from Greg's, a smirk still on her face. Grissom too was smiling, clearly amused. Sara was glad that the atmosphere had lightened slightly, and Greg was usually the victim of most of the team's jokes. Not that Sara disliked him in fact she felt a close affinity with Greg. His attraction to her was evident, she was entirely aware of that, but she felt it was harmless to leave him to wistfully admire her. He was well aware they were simply co-workers and friends, and she suspected he also had an inkling of her feelings for Grissom. Which she had slowly realised she was completely unable to deny. Since that day at the institution, and the day in his office, she had become more and more aware of how she had repressed her feelings for him and had set them free in her head, allowing fantasies to accumulate and hopes to rise.

She realised suddenly that they were rapidly approaching her home, speeding down streets that were entirely familiar to her, the usually heaving roads deserted with most motorists either cooped in the casinos or in bed. Staring out of the window she felt her eyes begin to droop, leaning against the glass. Yet the minute she closed her eyes, she saw the tortured face of Nick and the embittered face of Kelly, and she snapped her eyes open again, startled and unnerved at her visions.

"You okay?" Grissom asked her, aware of her sudden movement, his face embedded with a frown showing his concern.

"Yeah, I just..." Sara muttered but trailed off. Her and Grissom's relationship, if she could call it that, was generally shown through understated expressions of their feelings. She was not ready to pour her heart out to him at the slightest event, she wasn't like that as a person and neither was he. She was fond of that though, how functional and effective they both were, as CSIs being emotional in the field was hardly an option they had and when she found herself exposed emotionally by cases she felt a sense of defeat but also determination, to tackle the case as well as any other. She knew Grissom was exactly the same.

Grissom accepted her silence and soon they pulled into the lay-by in front of her apartment block. It was a fairly small block, closer to the lab than the centre of town, showing her own focus in the city, with a small green in front of the building and only 5 stories. She could never live in one of those huge sky-scrapers near the centre of town; she'd feel trapped and boxed in.

"You're very quiet this evening." Grissom commented as she gathered herself to leave the car.

Sara shrugged. "It's been a pretty harrowing day." she ran her hands over her face, as if to rub away the strain of the events. "Are you heading back to the lab?" she asked him, wondering whether Grissom would resiliently return to his work or be like the rest of them, too emotionally drained to go back without some serious sleep and rejuvenation.

Grissom shook his head in response. "No. I think I might drive around for a bit." He pondered out loud. Sara realised that he was no more eager to get back to work than she was.

She paused. She could always invite him in. It was hardly going to result in anything...well, physical, considering their previous day, but more than anything she wanted company and she suspected he might do as well. Plus, they still hadn't really tackled the issue of them, what they were doing. Their cases had been so hectic and their free shifts never seemed to coincide. In the heat of cases, when emotions were bottled up in favour of logic, they seemed to forget the unsolved riddle between them that had been unravelling since the day Grissom took her hand. Although, Sara felt that they had been unravelling for a much longer time. She wanted to just be with Grissom, be in his company. She felt safe and secure with him and she craved that.

"Do you want to come in? I'm hardly going to get any sleep for a while." She asked him bluntly. Nerves were irrelevant to her now. He'd given her an ultimatum that day in his office and now she was responding. She was sure that Grissom had implied plenty in his office, so she felt like the risk had already been taken. She was tired of the games, and she had decided from now on she was just going to bite the bullet and ask for what she wanted. And what she wanted, was for Grissom to stay and keep her company.

Gil raised his eyebrows in surprise, just slightly, but enough for Sara to notice. She would blush but she felt that she had put herself out there for Grissom enough times for shame and embarrassment to not be an issue anymore. She feared his rejection but more so, she feared her own vulnerability.

"Okay." He nodded slowly and stepped out of the car.

* * *

><p>Grissom was shocked and surprised at Sara's invitation. Maybe he wasn't too late, now he'd finally figured it out. Although, he had hoped that the first time Sara lead him to her apartment would be in slightly different circumstances, instead of two shattered colleagues seeking comfort. How he'd thought about it, being intimately with Sara, having that kind of physical and emotional relationship. Still, he knew that what they both needed that night was just the company of someone they trusted and felt comfortable with. He followed her up the stairs, familiar from the times he'd checked on Sara at home, eventually reaching her third story apartment.<p>

She fumbled in her bag, then her pocket for her keys, taking some time to find them and muttering to herself about it. Grissom smiled at her, and she looked up from her bag and smiled back as she fitted the illusive keys into her lock, turned, and let them in.

Her apartment was cold, the curtains drawn and her lights off. The room was distinctly Sara, littered with art work and books and floral carvings that crept up the purple-hued walls. He could see the chaos she had left when she had rushed to attend Nick's case, her bedroom door left open showing a room thrown into disorder in her frantic efforts to reach the lab as quickly as possible. He suspected she had been asleep when she received the call. He hadn't been, he'd been in his office preparing for his evening shift with Greg. The schedule gave Sara the evening to rest and relax, but she'd given up this privilege to help find Nick. Her desk was stacked high with books and papers, somehow that's what Grissom imagined the inside of her head to look like. He could see the current forensic journal she was reading propped open on her desk, illuminated as she flicked the switch of her lights on, casting a warm orange glow through the room.

"Home sweet home." Sara muttered, waving uncaringly at the room and the chaos spread out around her apartment. "Sorry about the mess, I left in a bit of a hurry."

"It's fine." Gil responded. He walked over to the journal to look what she was reading. It was an article on the significance of bullet lead compositions, something he had read himself. "It's fascinating to be able to match a bullet that old to a gun, 76% is a pretty good success rate." He commented, then saw Sara collapse onto her own sofa, a wince apparent in her posture. Grissom held up his hands. "Sorry. Too much work."

Sara shook her head. "No it's fine, I'm just tired." Grissom walked over to the sofa and stood in front of her. The dim light was flattering on her flawless skin that looked like satin and even in her state of exhaustion she looked ethereal. She looked up at him. His mind was blank, just being around her away from the wrought atmosphere of the lab was odd with his head empty of facts about a case giving Sara an empty space in his mind to fill and take over. Her eyes were huge in the half-light, enthralling and drawing Grissom into her. She then broke his gaze suddenly.

"Sorry, I forgot to ask if you wanted anything to drink." She said, making to stand up. Grissom put his hand on her shoulder and offered to get it himself.

He opened a few cupboards and found glasses and mugs stacked in one. She had few, suggesting she rarely entertained. Which he didn't find hard to believe, work was Sara's life and a social life was difficult to maintain with unpredictable hours and the traumatic work they did. He rarely saw anyone outside of work himself. Her mugs were more reflective of her past life, a Harvard mug and others of souvenirs of places she'd travelled before she had been engulfed by her work at the lab.

"There's juice in the fridge!" Sara called from behind the division between the kitchen and her lounge. Grissom found it and poured them both a drink, heading back to the sofa where Sara was sat. She thanked him as he handed her the glass and he sat beside her. Last time Grissom had been there Sara had sat on her chair and Grissom on the sofa. This time Grissom sat right next to her, as she sat with her knees hunched up to her chin. Grissom always thought it made her seem defensive when she sat like that. It was unusual for him to see Sara like this; in work she was always so strong.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Grissom asked her. She looked back to him, her expression intense and telling him that she was not. She rested her head in her hand. Grissom had seen her exactly like this before. So shaken and upset. Not that he wasn't, he felt as fragile as her but he'd always been better at hiding himself from it.

"I just can't stop thinking about...about Nick." Sara told him. "I just can't not see the expression on his face when you and Warrick walked away from the box and he thought... he thought we were going to abandon him." He voice was broken as she tried to talk coherently, the trauma in her voice so evident to Grissom it made him ache to comfort her. He knew exactly what she meant, he could picture the panic on Nick's face, as he calmed him, calling him Pancho and seeing not the confident and effective CSI that he knew but a scared and almost suicidal young man. This time, Nick had been the victim. It was terrorizing them all. Perhaps that was what Gordon meant, that he'd get into all of their heads with the very idea of Nick in that state. Gil concluded that he could be defined as a terrorist, looking down at Sara's face and seeing the horror reflected in her expression.

"I know." Grissom replied, leaning very slightly towards her. He couldn't help himself; he hated seeing her so upset. He slipped an arm around Sara's shoulder, with her accommodating his body, moulding herself to her. He could feel her body warmth through the stale chilled air of her apartment, emanating from her form.

"I mean imagine what could've happened." Sara pondered, the words catching in her throat as she considered what could've happened. Grissom held her tighter, as she lent her head against his chest. This was all her wanted, to have her close to him and be able to comfort her physically in a way that was more than just limply taking her hand. He knew that the physical presence of his body would shield her from her emotional turmoil to some extent.

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now." Grissom muttered to her. It was a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of his favourites. He tried to live true to the things like this he read aiming to put the past in the past and not worry about the future. At times he failed, but over years of perfecting this art that was instilled into him as a child faced with tragedy, he had become better at it than most of them could be.

Sara smiled through her agonised expression at Grissom then laughed at him. He loved her laugh; it seemed so precious, like a gem amongst dust, when she was often so morose and sternly professional. Unusually Grissom found Sara's apathy and indifference endearing, he could empathise and it made her emotions more valuable when he was lucky enough to see them. It was only when he allowed his thoughts to wander that he realised how much about Sara he adored. Even her flaws he found more endearing than irritating, so long as they didn't impact their work. She was irritatingly stubborn and her temper flared at inconvenient times but somehow Gil just saw this as her relentless independence and her passion that was normally so well tamed for the job they did. He looked down at her, and although she worn a serene expression, making her appear resplendent he could see a reflective line along her cheeks, zigzagging down in her silent distress. He raised his hand gently to her face, brushing away the tears softly.

Sara looked up at him, and Grissom felt as he did when she'd fixed him with the same gaze as in the office. The world slowed in respect for their reverent moments and every single breath they each took seemed caught in the narrow space between them. Grissom was acutely aware of every minute movement of the vibrant strands in Sara's deep brown eyes that were amber in the dim luminosity, studying him intently seeming fascinated at him. He was unaware of how close they were steadily becoming until their noses touched. Electricity zipped along his nerves, everything focused on every inch of skin they shared.

Sara suddenly dipped her head away from Grissom. God how she wanted to kiss him, every fibre in her body was pulling her like a magnet towards him, but at the same time, she didn't want to put him in an awkward situation considering the day's events. They were both emotionally traumatised and she didn't want Grissom to think that was why she had asked him up. It wasn't. She just wanted comfort and to offer come comfort. This was pure comfort, just being wrapped in Grissom's arms when she felt vulnerable and unprotected. Sara knew in herself that she was strong but that didn't mean that she wouldn't welcome someone like Grissom.

"Sara?" Grissom asked inquisitively, peering to try and secure her eye line again. She felt a pang of guilt at drawing so close to him but then pulling him away. It was torturing her too but then again she reconsidered, thinking of the number of times that she had felt that aching pain as Grissom moved away from her and she decided it was owed to her.

She shook her head and took his hand again. "No, nothing. I just..." she paused and took a breath. She needed to be open with Grissom that was never a way to start whatever this was going to be. "I just don't think it'd be a good idea." She reasoned the uneasy tone obvious. Grissom nodded in agreement. The absence of reluctance in his nod was reassuring, Sara was instantly relieved, she knew he would understand. In fact, she was almost more surprised that he hadn't ended the tension between them before she had. Perhaps she overestimated Grissom's integrity.

"Tonight I mean." Sara hurriedly added, not wanting to convey rejection to him. "I'm just tired, and I think you probably are too."

Grissom nodded. She could see he was tired and it was rare she could ever tell that in Grissom, even after working triple shifts she could barely detect a fault in his work or a dark shadow underneath his eyes. She put her hand up to his face, and stroked his jaw line with her slender figure, feeling his rough texture. Being tired was only half the reason, she just wanted to be sure that they didn't taint their unsteady and unstable relationship with the difficulties of their work.

"I'd still like to stay." Grissom offered his voice steady and logical as always. "Here I mean," he added, patting the couch. Sara smiled. She was so glad that he understood how shook up she felt by this whole idea. As soon as she closed her eyes she saw Nick, unless she was wrapped up with Grissom. She'd never felt anything so comfortable, something so natural. In fact she was surprised to see how easily they had transferred from the strict standards of a high pressure job to intimate friends. Not that she would like to define anything. In fact, she'd given up the idea of the normal dating situation...she stopped herself mid-thought. She wasn't even sure if they were a couple like that at all, whether dating was even on the agenda. She was getting ahead of herself.

"Are you sure?" Sara asked him. Practically it wasn't ideal, she probably hadn't got any bedding for him and he had hardly come prepared. In fact, he hadn't been home for a long time. She felt selfish for assuming that Grissom could just drop everything to keep her company. She began to shuffle to either let him out or get him something to sleep on.

Grissom nodded. "I insist." He added, pulling her back to how she'd been sat before. "In fact, stay here. Just like this." He wrapped his arms even more tightly around her, and kissed her on the forehead. Sara sighed. She was so content, in spite of all of the havoc and horror of the previous days. Nick was safe and she was tangled up on the sofa with the man she wished could always been around when she felt upset. In fact, it almost seemed like he had been recently. She snuggled into his chest and let her eyes close. She could feel sleep quickly approaching, despite her earlier defiance that she wouldn't manage to sleep.

The silence had crept into the room and after Grissom had stretched to switch off the lights and the only sounds were the sounds of the Las Vegas roads. Sara was locked into her posture with Grissom, half asleep and half awake. She suspected Grissom too was asleep, her head pressed to his chest, allowing her to hear the life surging through him.

"I've figured it out." Grissom whispered suddenly into the darkness. "Am I too late?" he asked. She could actually hear the uncertainty in his voice, something that was so out-of-place in his tone it was evident instantly. She smiled to herself, remembering the day when she'd told him that she wouldn't wait all this time for him to figure out their relationship. Yet she had waited and now they both knew what to do about them.

"No Gil. You're far from too late."


	3. Chapter 3 Bite Me

A/N: A slightly shorter update here, more filling in the blanks of the series than anything. There's not a lot of actual Sara/Grissom interraction in this chaper, it's more showing the difficulties they face in beginning a relationship. I'm so glad the previous chapter was so well recieved, all reviews are valued hugely by me.

* * *

><p>"<strong>Bite Me"<strong>

Grissom sat down in his office, surrounded by his botanical tanks and books. The organised biological chaos was his safe place, the eerie green lights of the plants comforting. The dull grey light shifted through the clouded glass panelled roof in front of him. He could read the rewarding chirp of the crickets behind him in their boxes, a recent experiment he was conducting. The humidifiers were whirring over their creaking legs, altering the humidity in each of the boxes. A fairly simply experiment, and one that he suspected was extraneous to their cases but in the past plenty of his irrelevant pursuits had come into their own in their investigations more than once.

Catherine suddenly appeared on the other side of the door, peering through his blinds. Grissom smiled and raised his hand; palm up to invite her in. She peered around the door. "We have a confession." She announced, stepping into the room and waving the file in front of him. The air of authority as she walked in was evident. Grissom had no doubt that Ecklie had made an effective decision promoting her to supervisor. Even with a united team, Grissom tried to made sure she had the power and influence she deserved. Working together, they were especially effective, with Catherine's blunt matter-of-fact approach and his scientific thinking.

"Good news then. The daughter?" Grissom enquired. Catherine nodded. She slumped down onto one of the chairs and smacked the file down on Grissom's desk, in the narrow space between his lamp and various pieces of horse skeleton that usually adorned his desk. Grissom picked it up and opened it, presented with the photos of Mrs Lester slumped in her blood and various other images of the crime scene, flicking through them to reach the pages of documents that Catherine had meticulously filled out. She was so much better than Gil at the bureaucracy of the job, he was thankful.

"I doubt we have anything to incriminate Mr Lester." She said, and Grissom could sense her defeat. His eyebrows raised in surprise.

"He knew?" he asked. After hearing of the daughter's involvement, he had simply suspected that the husband had found his wife after his daughter had disappeared and assumed that lightning had struck twice. Catherine nodded solemnly.

"He heard the attack, came in and saw his wife lying dead at Chloe's feet, then he wiped her weapon and covered up for his daughter." She informed him. Grissom shook his head. He never ceased to be amazed by the kind of people they uncovered in their investigations, yet he was more than often surprised by how often everything came back to the same typical facts of human nature. Parents would always try and protect their children. Mr Lester had failed.

"I'm not sure I could protect Lindsay if I knew she was a murderer." Catherine pondered, leaning on Grissom's desk. Grissom looked across at Catherine. He suspected she would, even with her strong moral instincts and experience of the some of the worst criminals in the world. Lindsay was the only thing that she cared about more than her work or her sense of justice, which shouldn't surprise him, apart from that he found it hard to fathom about anyone being capable of caring about something more than Catherine cared about her work. She was just like him, like all of them. To be an effective CSI, you had to devote your life to it. Like he'd told Lurie, his work had consumed him and he had been entirely willing.

"If she killed someone in your house and you knew, you'd call the police and watch her be arrested and escorted away?" Grissom asked her inquisitively. He obviously knew that Catherine had raised Lindsay in a household where the law and human life was valued above all other things and so he knew Lindsay would never be in that kind of situation.

"I don't think I could live with myself after that, whether she was alive or in jail. I'd be as guilt-ridden as if I'd killed the guy with my own hands." Catherine admitted. Grissom studied her intently. He knew she was constantly wracked with concerns over Lindsay and how she was being raised, mostly in her absence. She was fearful that Lindsay could become like many others had in the city, waylaid and mislead in spite of their parents best efforts. Their recent difficulties and her mother's pressure was making her more anxious than usual, almost desperate Grissom suspected. Sending Lindsay to Butterfield Academy was a step in the right direction as far as she was concerned, but Grissom was certain she was doing a better job than she realised.

"Lindsay's a good kid." Grissom assured her, smiling at her. Catherine smiled back, genuinely.

"Thanks. I know, I just get freaked out when I see cases like this." She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the ideas. Then she put her hands on the arm of her chair, standing upright. "I'm just going to finish off the paperwork for this then I'm heading home. My shift finished a few hours ago and hopefully I'll be up in time to get Lindsay from school." Gil smiled, glad to see that she was making time for her daughter and handed the case file back to her.

"Okay, I'll see you at our next crime scene I expect." Grissom bade her farewell, only half joking. The chaos of the team working so many hours was that they never had a designated time they knew they'd be coinciding again, the schedule seemed to have become more redundant recently than ever. Ecklie no doubt attributed this to Grissom's influence over the team again. Since the whole catastrophe with Nick, Gil had been pushing himself even further to try and make sure he kept a close eye on all his staff, even down to making sure they all had the time off when they needed it rather than when it suited his schedule. They were always worked down to the bone as it was, he was just trying to five them a break.

Catherine stopped shortly at the door. "Oh, and Sara was looking for you earlier, she probably checked here before you came back. I think she's been out hauling in her hit-and-run witness," She added, before closing the door behind her and heading back in the direction she'd come.

Sara. Grissom had hardly seen her since they had processed the scene at the Lester's, a hit-and-run right near the strip had needed more workers and Warrick had covered it with Sara. As far as Grissom had heard it'd been a fairly straight forward case, with the car traced to an address. Brass had sent Detective Cavalerie to arrest the suspect whilst he dealt with the Lester family. She suspected that Sara would be finished by now, also heading off now the morning was approaching. He folded up the paperwork details and decided that for once, he was going to put his social life above his work. He pushed back his chair and headed out into the station.

Instinctively he headed down to the break room but on his failure to find Sara he kept wandering around, with other CSIs zigzagging past. He glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly 7am and he felt ready to head out of the station and head out. He'd had enough of cases for one night and he wanted to see Sara. He hadn't had much time with her outside of work since the night he'd stayed with her, and he wanted to actually see her in a casual environment when neither of them was traumatised by the day's events. He hadn't even kissed her yet.

He poked his head into A/V. "You seen Sara?" he enquired casually to Archie, who was peering over his computer screens.

Archie smiled and swivelled away from his computer screen. "Nope, she hasn't been here for a few hours. She came by earlier to check some surveillance that was caught on a corner shop camera of the crash, Brass and Warrick too. I managed to recover a number plate and they headed out to check the address, and I think they put out a broadcast for the car."

Grissom sighed, realising he had missed her again. She was most likely busy on a case now and Gil suspected she would be unable to catch her before she was fully engaged with the whole work. "What are you working on?" he enquired, peering over Archie's shoulder at his monitor, a etchy and unusual audio trace on the screen. The A/V room was much darker than the rest of the lab due to the work Archie did which meant the bright light of the screen hurt Grissom's eyes.

"Perhaps nothing yet, I'm trying to see if I can decode audio off some tape that Ecklie gave me from a burn site. It's battered and barely recognisable." He sighed. "I'm most likely going to be here all day." Grissom sighed, understanding Archie's plight.

"Are CSI on the case?" he enquired, surprised he hadn't heard about the case but he suspected he'd missed it when working the other cases. It had obviously been a busier night than he'd initially realised, and he feared he would be needed before he could go out with Sara. He'd been considering buying her breakfast as he wandered around the lab, they could talk before they headed home to catch up on sleep. They'd stood in the bedroom earlier discussing another couple's lack of romance, when all he really wanted was his own with her. He was hardly the romantic type, yet he felt that Sara wasn't either. They were both unorthodox and unconventional and that was good, but that also meant that they were so difficult to pin down that they could hardly organise a date yet alone a relationship.

Archie shrugged. "I think Nick might have headed out with Greg just to check it out, but I think it was a straight up accidental fire, or at least that's the impression I got. Two killed, I think it was a young couple. A fire-fighter found a Dictaphone near the one victim, Ecklie asked me to check it out just to be sure." Archie relayed the facts to Grissom, who snapped out of his thoughts of Sara, his professional mindset resetting itself.

"Thanks Archie. Good luck with that." He wished him, moving back out into the CSI halls. The bright light was beginning to leak down the corridors, showing how the day was rapidly approaching outside and the hung-over gamblers, the school children and the businessmen of the city would be creeping out of their beds. He wanted to see Sara, but as he did, Ecklie walked out of a room to his left a few yards in front of him and Gil called out to catch him up.

"Ah Grissom. I hear you've solved the Lester case." He congratulated him insincerely. Ecklie's height made him difficult to keep up with, and Grissom had to lengthen his bounding strides to maintain his position alongside him.

"Actually, it was mostly Catherine that solved the case." Grissom admitted, without a hint of shame. There was no reason to worry about not cracking every single case, so long as someone in his team did it, even if it made him less sufficient than Ecklie would've liked. "How come you didn't tell me about the fire?" he quizzed him. Ecklie hardly riled Grissom as much as he wished but Gil was never willing to not be involved where he could be of use. He was generally a firm believer than the more people that were looking, the more people would see. Whether or not it was an accident, he wanted to be certain that his team did as well as they could and he was sure he would be of some assistance. He felt he'd most likely missed Sara by now and she was either home or off on another case, which he regretted but he had realised that was part of their job.

"You seemed too busy spitting ketchup at a wall, I didn't want to interrupt your important work." Ecklie goaded him, his smirk evident. Grissom knew Ecklie was hardly a fan of his unusual science methods, from complaining about his ongoing experiments he conducted in his lab to arguing that he should be looking more for at 'who' rather than 'how'. Yet Grissom had found that his way had worked well enough to get him this far and stop many criminals going any further, which was argument enough for him to disregard any of Ecklie's criticisms.

"It was an experiment in relation to the case." Grissom stated factually. He wasn't going to be defensive; he'd been working entirely in favour of their investigation. "So the case with the fire?" he enquired, probing for more information_._

Ecklie sighed. "Grissom, I'm sure Sanders and Stokes will be fine investigating a fire from a cigarette someone failed to put out properly before they went to bed." he informed him bluntly. He clearly was not in the mood for a discussion or a debate, he wanted Grissom out of his business and to be left alone with his life. Grissom didn't doubt that it could've been just as simple as that but he had often gone into simple situations and found a web of complexity and intrigue. In most cases like that one of the CSIs managed to uncover that web, and Gil had no doubt that Greg and Nick had the capability of doing that.

"So they determined the cause of the fire?" Grissom quizzed him further, gladly ignoring his dismissal and relentlessly pursuing the case anyway. He couldn't help smiling slightly, as difficult as it was to work as he wanted around Ecklie, he almost enjoyed irritating him in good humour.

"Yes. And I'm about to have a meeting with the Undersheriff so if you'll excuse me. I'll see you again at the start of your next shifts." Ecklie finished, turning off down the East wing of the lab and heading back to his office, with a stern end to the conversation. Gil saw him storming down the corridor away from him, aware of the clear implication that Grissom should leave the case well alone. Which was exactly the invitation that Grissom needed.

* * *

><p>Sara watched as a Frank Larsen was lead out of the interview room by two officers, staying fixated on him as he was frogmarched down the corridors. She looked at Brass who had been conducting the interview with her. "Good job." She commended him. Brass smiled and agreed with her and headed out in the wake of the criminal. The hit-and-run had been conducted and solved within a matter of hours, and Sara was always glad of these quick-cut cases, where facts fell together and leads never froze up.<p>

She'd been called from the Lester's house to attend; Warrick had been there when she'd reached the site. A young man had been found on a road just off the strip, his bruised and battered body lying discarded on the road after it's unfortunate journey up a car windscreen. They'd managed to identify the man from his driver's license and the friend that had been hysterically sobbing next to him. A Mr. Walter Pierce, aged 27, who had been walking home from a club when they'd been hit by a dark car that they'd been unable to identify from the witness account. Warrick had managed to spot a CCTV camera from a nearby corner shop, and they had recovered the footage. It clearly depicted a black BMW driving violently around the corner, and hitting the victim on the footpath. License plate was ran through the database and gave them an address, and they went along with Cavalerie to arrest the suspect. They'd ended up at a detached house on the outskirts of the town, modern with cold glass walls and black marble floors. Within minutes they located the resident, Frank Larsen.

In the interview room, it had taken a matter of minutes for Frank to commit to the crime, and that he hadn't stopped because he was drunk. He'd panicked and kept driving, traumatised by the sight of the young man hitting his windscreen. No lawyer was called, a confession was signed and the suspect was marched away. Sara sighed. She had not intended to become embroiled in another case, she thought that she would simply be processing the screen and departing for her bed. Instead, Warrick had begged her to continue the case so he could spend some more time with his wife Tina. Sara could hardly argue that she never got to spend any time with Grissom and try and explore their actual relationship, so she had accepted and went back to the station to watch the footage.

Sara leant on the table then she stood up and let herself out of the interview room. She'd heard Greg and Nick were attending another case but she knew that all of the others had headed home. Or at least she thought they had until Grissom came powering around the corner, clearly on a mission. Sara adored seeing him in this determined state, but that often meant that he wasn't available to spend any time with her. Yet again, she had hardly seen him since the night he had stayed at hers, holding her all night. They'd awoke later in the day, nearer to the afternoon due to their exhaustion. He'd kissed her forehead, she'd made his tea and she went to take a shower as he headed home before they returned to work in the evening. It had been blissfully simple and lovely.

"Hey Grissom." She greeted him casually, stepping into his path. She was aware that they were alone, but that that was only temporary as the corridor was always a bustling path of cops and detectives and scientists. Grissom slowed to stop in front of her. She studied him quickly, engorging everything she could see of him, greedily recording mentally every single solitary moment they spent together. His dark top was spattered with ketchup from his earlier experiments and she could see the impressions of his deep frown that he wore when thinking imprinted in his forehead. She loved every line on the face of this man, it was all of his genius and emotion etched on his skin.

"Sara. I thought you'd gone home." He stated factually. She wasn't surprised; she thought she'd have been home by then too. He sounded disappointed, which concerned her.

"Busy?" she enquired hopefully. She wanted to spend some time with him before their next evening shift rolled around and another succession of cases hurled them apart or into a maze of leads and victims and autopsies and suspects. It was inevitable, and it was rare they had moments like these when neither of them was embroiled in a case. Although, from Grissom's expression she suspected that the moments were rarer than even then.

"Actually, I just told Nick I'd help them process a fire scene." He told her, sounding regretful. Sara knew it was unusual for Grissom to ever sound reluctant about his work, which was almost flattering, that he was so eager to spend time with her. But now was not that time, which was disappointing for both of them.

"That's okay." Sara replied, smiling brightly but feeling embittered. She didn't blame Grissom of course, just their livelihoods, the routes they had chosen long ago that meant that they would forever put work before anything else. She rarely regretted decisions like that, except when she could physically feel herself missing out on something. Not like clubbing or parties, she never felt like she'd missed anything special with those, but missing out on Gil was tough. She could tell from Grissom's reluctance to leave her and his deep-set frown that he felt the same. "Soon." She added, beginning to hedge past him and back to collect her belongings.

He nodded and smiled at her. "Soon."


	4. Chapter 4 Gum Drops

**A/N:** Another update, hopefully with some more GSR in this time round. I did a bit of research on Body Farm's where Grissom had apparently been in this episode, it sounds like the kind of place Grissom would love .

I'd also like to apologise for the ridiculous number of spelling and grammar mistakes in the previous chapter, I proof read when I was absolutely exhausted so no doubt that's why I missed them. Hopefully I'll do better on this chapter. Also, as I'm British, there might be some discrepancies such as how I always forget that not everyone calls a cell phone a mobile. And I'd like to apologise for any mistakes in continuity with the episodes, I tend to write these sometime after I've watched the episode so most of it is formulated from memory and the odd clips I can find on youtube. Lots of apologies this time! Anyway, enjoy!

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><p>"<strong>Gum drops"<strong>

Sara walked through the doors back into the CSI HQ away from the LVPD, and the interview rooms where she had spent the last few hours, quizzing the young boys over the rest of the day and now into the deep night after she had accompanied the bodies back to the city from the small town where the McBrides had lived. It had taken them several hours to get confessions from the boys, especially Mark with his lawyer father but with all the evidence that she piled in front of him she eventually broke them all. Nick was with Cassie at the hospital getting her statement which would solidify the case. She headed along the corridors and past the DNA lab, catching sight of Wendi on her night shift. She had hardly realised how late it was, far into the dark hours of the morning. Another double shift for her, Sara was shattered.

She was glad that Nick had been right about this case, about Cassie at least. Yet she didn't regret warning him against getting his hopes up to much. She'd learnt from experience that more often than not the criminal got the courage up and killed the person. They spend a lot more time finding bodies than finding people alive. She worried about Nick, she saw that he was getting emotionally tied up into the situation. Like she said, 6 months ago he would never have been that emotional. Luckily, this time he'd been right, and she had been so relieved when she got the call saying he'd found Cassie alive on the journey back to the lab.

Spinning on her heel, Sara turned into the locker room. The lab was usually a monochrome buzz of artificial light along the black floors but the energy in the place kept it from being gloomy, but the locker room was always significantly darker than the other rooms, a dark burrow tucked away between the A/V lab and the offices on either side. Greg was in there, just taking all of his belongings out of his locker.

"Hey Greg!" she greeted him brightly, putting her case down on the bench and heading to her own locker. "You're here late." She commented, in truth she thought Greg would be heading home as soon as the autopsies were finished on the McBride's. Greg grinned his goofy grin in response. Sara liked Greg. He was always in good humour and so always good company, considering the morbid case they'd just covered. That was just what Greg was like.

"Hey Sara. Yeah it took a while to sort out the bodies then I was helping out Warrick file the rest of the evidence on all that marijuana. I heard you found Cassie then?" he questioned her, slipping on his own shoes and fastening their laces against the bench.

"Yeah, Nick found her. She's in hospital, and he's with her." She filled him in. "He'll be heading back soon."

"You guys did a good job." Greg commended her, zipping up his bag and heading for the door. "I just hope Nick wasn't too shook up about the whole thing." He added the concern evident in his voice. Sara knew that Greg really cared about Nick, he had a better relationship with him than many of the others on the team, and the nickname 'Greggo' was evidence of that. Nick was like Greg's older brother and like always, seeing someone you respected show vulnerability was always unnerving. Sara smiled fondly at him.

"He'll be fine." She assured him. She was generally quite sure about that now that Cassie was safe, she would have been far more concerned about him if they hadn't found Cassie alive. Not rescuing someone might scare the hell out of them, showing him how scarily close he had come to never being rescued himself. She had worried about Nick's refusal to accept that Cassie was dead, in case it set himself up for a huge fall. Then again, she knew that kind of determination; it was exactly what had gripped the entire team when they were looking for Nick.

"I know." Greg nodded, looking down contemplatively. Then he looked up, an optimistic look on his face now. "I'll see you in about 12 hours, start of your next shift?" he smiled. Sara sighed. There were never enough hours in the day. She was going to be exhausted, but she said farewell to Greg before he headed off and went to her own locker. She changed her gear over and slowly wandered back out to where her car was parked.

She drove along the streets of Vegas; the morning was still young enough for the roads to be jammed with taxis along the main routes, so she headed around back streets and around to her apartment block. The lights of the strip were visible over the houses as she sped along the quieter roads. She passed few cars, spotted a few drunken wanderers along the roadsides. She was always concerned; it was often that she found one of these intoxicated people lying in their mortuary. The dark sky was littered with clouds but it was mainly clear, meaning it was significantly cooler than when they had been out in the field during the day on the lake.

Her mind flicked to Cassie. Nick said he'd found her lying abandoned on the river bed, her throat half-cut from cowardice. She would most likely now go into care if they couldn't find her relatives to care for her. Nick said it was only him with her at the hospital. Sara sighed. She knew exactly how that felt, to be left in the care of affectionate and lovely people that were unfortunately total strangers. Foster care was always harsh. Cassie was almost like her in a way, Sara had been a similar age, and perhaps she could say that like her parents, they had brought the demise of their family on themselves. Of course, the McBride's never meant to die, but their drug farm was their own doing and it was also their undoing.

She shook the thoughts from her head as she turned into her apartment car park. It was enough that Nick was becoming emotionally embroiled in the case, she couldn't let herself be too. She took the keys out of her ignition and headed up from the car park. She dawdled up the stair well, with no one else around. She wasn't home enough to actually know her neighbours, which struck her as kind of sad but again that was just the life she had picked. The bag of her belongings dangled from her arm, grazing the floor in her absent-minded state. She turned the key in her lock and entered her apartment. Every single time she did that she wished there was someone on the other side of the door to welcome her home, to have missed her. She felt very isolated all of a sudden. She envied Warrick being able to go home to Tina, and Catherine with Lindsay. She wondered sometimes if Greg and Nick felt the same in their lonely lives.

The kitchen sat in the corner, inviting her to make a drink or a snack. She looked away. The dark cosy bedroom, that was visible through her half-open door. She threw her bag down on her couch in the corner and wandered into her room. She wanted Gil there. He could hold her and make her feel wanted; instead he was away at the Body Farm in Tennessee, miles and miles away from her soft bedspread where she was now slumped. Kicking off her shoes and discarding her clothes, Sara crawled into her bed and falling into sleep faster than gravity could act on her, her last thought, as always, on Gil.

* * *

><p>Grissom strode out of the terminal where his plane had just come in from Knoxville, the three hour flight doing nothing to drain him of energy as he pulled his compact suitcase decisively along behind him across the polished plastic floor. He poured out into the airport foyer, past the waiting relatives and people with signs, weaving around the crowds of holiday makers that would soon be gracing the casinos and lining the owner's pockets. His sunglasses refracted away the dazzling sunlight that was pouring through the large glass doors as Gil headed out to hail a taxi and once he had succeeded and relayed his address, he slumped into the worn seats.<p>

His trip to Body Farm had been somewhat of a whistle-stop tour. Time away from the lab was valuable, and Ecklie was reluctant to spare any of Grissom's. He'd therefore organised an earlier flight so that he could be back in time to join in his team for the evening shift. That meant that he'd spent little more than 2 days at the facility, teaching for just one day. That particular facility often trained law-enforcement techniques and how to handle crime scenes so Grissom did some classes on dealing with bodies decomposed in insect-ridden environments and how the insects could be used to identify the time scale of decomposition. He had highly enjoyed the trip, yet now he was aware that he was going back to an empty apartment waiting for his other shift to start. Grissom had met many interesting people at the facility, other researchers that had far more knowledge in the field that him, but now he was surrounded by no one. There was no one waiting to greet him at the airport. His town house was the other side of Vegas to the airport and the journey was long and tedious, Grissom rarely didn't drive himself and disliked being a passenger. He felt restless, and so flipped open his mobile phone and dialled a number.

A groggy half-asleep voice answered. "Gil?" she mumbled. Grissom smiled. Just her voice, even masked by sleep and disorientated, was strong and enticing, willing him to engage her in conversation just to keep her talking. He loved her voice. Although, he felt the responsibility to let her return to the sleep he'd obviously just pulled her from. Sleep was precious to all CSIs, he knew how at times cases made it almost impossible to obtain and he didn't want Sara's to waste her sleep on him.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to wake you." Grissom apologised sincerely. He remember how serene and gorgeous she was when she slept, her brow furrowed in unconscious thought, her hair loosely falling away from her face, the soft rising and falling of her chest with her inspiration and expiration like the very tide that pulled Grissom towards her. He felt guilty at disturbing that peaceful image. "Go back to sleep." He urged her in response to her defiant and confused mumbles down the phone.

"No no, I'm awake now anyway." She argued with him. Gil dropped his protests; she was smart enough to make sure she was well tended. Her emotional state was less fragile than it'd been when their relationship had begun its unsure and undefined path into being. They'd spent a few spare hours together, more in genuine friendship and affection than dating. The physical aspect of their relationship had been halted by their busy schedules, but Grissom was in no rush to pursue this, now he was sure that Sara was not likely to be lost to him any time soon.

"How did the case go?" he enquired eagerly. If she was sure she was awake, he was interested in the case with the missing bodies. He heard Sara laugh down the phone. "What's so funny?" he asked, slightly embarrassed at her amusement at his curiosity.

"Nothing, I just love how wherever you are, your head's always in the lab." She told him honestly. He smiled, looking out of the window at the streets whizzing past. School children were heading out to their lessons, and traffic was solid with commuters beginning to clog up the arteries of the city. A thought entered his head at Sara's comment, that he wouldn't want her to think he was distracted by the lab when they were together. On the contrary, he found that it was only Sara that could drag his reluctant mind away from his work. That and his experiments, but in a way, he felt that the cases he pursued at work, were just more of his experiments.

"Except when wherever is with you." He retorted fondly. He could almost feel Sara smiling girlishly into the phone, enjoying the image of her flattered by his compliments.

"Listen, have you any plans for today?" she asked instead of humbly thanking him. Grissom was glad that Sara was secure in her own identity. Taunted by her past and self-destructive she believed she was, but he knew she was confident in her own attraction and her own abilities, rather than hanging on to his every word for reassurance. She focused on her work because she wanted to, not because she felt she had to hide. Like him, she was not superficial and he adored that about her. He was glad of the invitation she appeared to be extending too. He was well-rested and unphased by his travels, in fact, the class had served as a good break. Grissom felt refreshed.

"No. How about I pick you up in an hour and we head down to Sunset Park?" Grissom suggested, the idea occurring to him as he spoke it. "Take a walk. It'll be fun." he added cheerily. He hadn't been to the park in a while, and Sunset Park was his favourite in Las Vegas, with its rarely maintained flower-beds and large pond, it felt like a wild stretch of nature in a town where it was people that were usually wild. The day was perfect, and school term-time meant it wouldn't be too overrun with people.

"Sure. I'll see you in an hour; I can fill you in on the case then." Sara agreed without hesitation, and the phone beeped to signal the connection end. Grissom looked at the phone and smiled. Perfect timing, he thought to himself, as the taxi pulled up outside his townhouse, and he headed indoors to change for his outing.

* * *

><p>The knocking of knuckles on Sara's door echoed through her apartment, inducing a grin on Sara's face. She was always glad of greeting Grissom, opening the door to him was one of her favourite things. She almost laughed at herself, and her uncontrollable infatuation she could see herself being gripped in, the dopey smile that adorned her face whenever she recalled the slightest touch she'd shared with Grissom. She felt like a kid again, when she fancied Peter Williams in ninth grade and he made her blush. Although, she suspected that had just been because he was the only person that didn't look at her differently after her dad died. She shook memories of Peter Williams and her childhood from her head as she headed across her apartment, adjusted her locks and swung open the door.<p>

Grissom was stood in her doorframe, looking relaxed in jeans, a shirt and a zipper hoodie with a slight smile that widened at her appearance and a demeanour which was distinctly different from his usual stern attitude and his smart clothes. It had taken her a while to adjust to Grissom out of work, although it almost seemed like he was doing the adjusting too and she was aware that he clearly spent little time away from his colleagues and fellow scientists. She greeted him with a hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and feeling his strong broad form for a second. He always smelt slightly of grass and slightly of the musky scent that adorned his office, a smell that was typically Grissom but entirely indescribable.

She invited him in for a moment, realising she was not quite ready. Her hair was pulled back loosely into a pony tail, and her outfit was usual for her, just jeans and a t-shirt. She was hardly the type to fawn over her wardrobe desperately searching for the perfect outfit. She grabbed a pair of studded earring off her dresser and slotted them into her ears, pacing around her apartment in her bare feet as Grissom headed over to her desk and glanced at whatever she was reading at the time. She paused for a moment, watching his eyes dart from behind his glasses at the words on the page, the internal workings of a genius processing the information and storing it in his endless memory bank. He became aware of her and turned to look at her curiously.

"Ready?" he queried. She nodded. "Good. Then we'll go." He finished matter-of-fact-ly but casting her a smile before holding open her door in his usual mock-chivalrous manner. She paused to lock up and they headed down to the parking lot where Grissom's car was parked. They were quickly on the road, and in deep conversation, with Sara filling in Grissom the details of the McBride case.

"A trail of gum?" he asked, in his familiar questioning tone. Sara nodded. "Nick realised it. He was really in tune with Cassie. It was...weird." Sara pondered out loud.

It had been weird, she'd merely discredited the gum as coincidence but Nick was adamant it was a trail. Of course, it hadn't lead them to Cassie, that'd been the evidence, but it had fuelled Nick's hopes of finding Cassie, which were perhaps crucial to him continuing his search after Sara had left. In reality, everything Nick had said about Cassie had turned out to be true, she was alive and she was smart. Coincidence or not, the whole case had seemed eerie, right down to the bodies floating with their sunken faces in the still waters of the lake.

"I was worried, if I'm honest." She admitted finally. She wasn't sure whether she should be telling Grissom this, but as her friend rather than her supervisor, she found it necessary to talk about it with someone. Plus, Grissom was usually more observant than her and would be able to make sure Nick was okay from a superior's perspective. Grissom looked at her curiously, obviously willing her on to an explanation, before he returned his eyes to the road.

"He just seemed to keep drawing, like, parallels with Cassie's kidnapping and himself. He was adamant we'd rescue her like we did him. And he totally lost it at one of the suspects when they found evidence placing him and Cassie in the car." She informed him. Recounting the experience of Nick's raw angry that seemed so misplaced in a character of usually such friendly and calm behaviour, made he feel the same shock as she had when it'd happened. "I spoke to him about it and he apologised. I just worry about what the whole case with Gordon has done to him." She finished.

Grissom nodded solemnly. "Something like that is obviously going to change him." He commented simply. "It's just fortunate he was right this time." Sara subconsciously agreed, as she saw them turn into the road next to Sunset Park. "I'll keep an eye on him." Grissom assured her, as he parked up and exited the car. Sara smiled. She knew Grissom would, he always kept a close watch on all his team, not just on their performance but on their welfare. He was an excellent supervisor, if not somewhat unorthodox, she thought, as they began to head out along one of the long paths that wound through the park. She reached out and took his hand without hesitation. He did not respond, apart from the faint traces of a smile appearing on his expression and his hand tensing welcomingly around hers.

The sun was glorious but the wavering heat was kept at bay by a cool breeze that whisked through the park and blew Sara's hair into her face as they strolled down the path that ran through the park, surrounded by sweeping lawns and adorned with flower beds that exploded with a kaleidoscope of floral colours. Unenthusiastic park rangers apparently left the plants to lazily reach out of their restricted boundaries, stretching out to graze past strollers like themselves. It was remarkably peaceful, an oasis in their usually insanely strained and screaming city. Sara closed her eyes for a moment, entirely relying on Grissom's guidance without him realising it, his hand leading her softly off the path and onto the lawns. She opened her eyes to see them heading towards where the trees became denser, and the sparse groups of people became even further spaced apart.

They talked sporadically, Sara asked how Body Farm was, Gil queried further about the case, asking for random details that Sara could hardly see as relevant. Typically Grissom of course. At points they collapsed onto the grass, basking in the sun as Sara lay her head on Grissom's chest as they sat there. Talking often lulled to comfortable silence, both of them gloriously at peace with each other's company and their environment. Sara felt like they were a million miles away from the lab and the crime scenes that they spent their lives in.

Sara opened her eyes behind her sunglasses, still wincing at the bright light from the startling blue sky. Grissom did not wear his yet, still stared unrelentingly outwards contemplatively, as if studying something no one else could see. Although that was almost always what he did. His ice eyes were isolated in a hazy hot scene, sparking blue stars in his face lined with his experiences and shrouded by his stubble. He glanced down at her suddenly.

"You okay?" he asked her curiously, Sara was aware he could feel his eyes on her; it was like being put under a microscope. She smiled.

"I'm good." She assured him. He was sending shivers along Sara's spine, in contrast to their beautifully serene atmosphere. They'd met a few times outside of work, generally done things they would have typically done on their own, went to the Las Vegas Natural History museum to see their new exhibition or just met to travel in to work together. Little things, like having them as a comfortable addition to their usual life. Now Sara was wondering if that was what they wanted. They both were entirely aware of the other's feelings, the tension was always just bordering around them, yet their friendship seemed the most evident thing that was developing. Sara wondered if they were both just scared, a notion that was out of place with both of their characters but then neither of them was making the definitive move to say that they were more than friends. Sara felt like she would be making the greatest risk ever, that maybe their work would change and their problems would leak into the workplace and then she would no longer have an escape from the world, in her work where everything was factual and scientific. The notion of emotions like they would have being at work was scary. She suspected that was exactly what Grissom felt.

* * *

><p>Grissom was studying a wasp's nest he could see huddled in a tree several meters from them. He was trying to identify the species, squinting past the glaring sunlight at the hazy cocoon and frantic dots whirling around it. He decided from the relatively small nest that it was not a hornet, and finally settled on his decision that it was most likely a paper wasp nest. He was always fascinated by bugs, he couldn't help it. Even with a beautiful girl resting against him, he couldn't help being distracted.<p>

Sara looked gorgeous in the sunlight; her pale skin was radiant peering out from underneath her glasses. Grissom didn't need to look directly at her to feel his heart pull in his chest to hold her tightly, kiss her, have her to himself with no one to judge and nothing to consider or think. Yet he was still testing the water, dipping his toe in to assess whether he could do what he wanted and jump in. The more time they were together, the more time he felt like he couldn't stop himself, the more time they were apart the more time he spent feeling terrified at the risk he could take. The risk he knew he was going to take, sooner or later.

Grissom's mobile suddenly chimed loudly. He glanced at the name on the screen. Ecklie. He was bugging him for the personelle reports that he hadn't got around to doing. He'd been with Sara whenever he would have usually been pouring over that detestable paper work. Sara was a much better past time than that, but perhaps it something he should be concerned about. Despite their best efforts, even as just friends, it was beginning to alter things. He waited for the call to ring out and slipped it back into his pocket.

"Who was it?" Sara enquired curiously, peering just over the tinted rim of her glasses.

"Ecklie." Grissom informed her coolly. She laughed but didn't enquire as to why he was avoiding the calls as he had expected. She probably already had guessed. Grissom was often surprised at how well Sara knew him.

Suddenly, as if to respond to Grissom's, Sara's phone rang out too. She gave him a humorous expression, as she pulled it out and flipped it open, Grissom could hear a female voice on the other end of the phone line. After a brief conversation she hung up and began to stand up. Grissom instantly understood from her movement and her half of the conversation, she'd been called into work. For a moment, Grissom felt a pang of annoyance that Sara was leaving already. They'd barely had an hour together but Grissom could hardly protest against Sara's excessive hours, where Grissom was usually the person assigning the hours. He told himself they'd see her too.

"Murder calls?" Grissom asked casually. He hardly wanted to show how much he hated not having time with her, it was the way their relationship was, or at least was going to be, and he had to accept that he knew.

Sara smiled as she brushed off her clothing of stray grass blades that had clung to her. "Suicide actually." She corrected him humorously, and then her smile dropped for a second. "That was Catherine, young woman found dead with a gun in her hand." Her tone was graver suddenly, in keeping with the serious nature of their work. "Brass's already there, Catherine's waiting for me to come down before we head out."

Grissom nodded. Textbook really, but then again, he knew they'd have to be thorough; gun placement was always a possibility. He nodded and stood up. "I'll drop you off at the lab." He told her, standing up himself.

"No it's okay, it's only a couple of blocks, I'll walk." She informed him. "Besides, it'll look odd if you appear before anyone's called you." She added.

Grissom raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything. Somehow they had intentionally kept all their meetings secret from the rest of the team. It had seemed coincidental in the past, but now he agreed that perhaps they shouldn't create suspicion at work. The last thing he needed was pressure from the others to consider the consequences, to not hurt Sara, to spend more time with her, all the contrasting advice they were always willing to offer. He agreed. "I could wait here for a phone call." He accepted.

Sara nodded. "Yes you could." She confirmed and began to walk away. She paused for a second and span around several meters away from where Grissom was sat. "Hey Grissom!" she called, grinning broadly.

"Yes?" he replied with a smile. She looked so full of vitality waving at him, so happy. It was good for him to see.

"Are you ever going to kiss me?" she asked him bluntly, with a cheeky smile that he could see on her face from the distance. Grissom laughed, more amused than humiliated that Sara had realised how stagnant and wary their relationship had become.

"Yes." He replied.

"When?" she asked him even more, relentlessly.

"Soon." Grissom replied definitively. Sara smiled and walked away, and Grissom watched her as she went, hoping that the chance to kiss her would arise very soon.


	5. Chapter 5 Secrets and Flies

**A/N: **I am so so sorry about the length of time I waited to update, but holidays without internet called. Anyway, I hope this chapter is enjoyable. Much love x

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><p>"<strong>Secrets and Flies"<strong>

The evening was steadily drawing closer, with the light that poured through the windows into the lab and its corridors slowly decreasing, crawling back to be replaced by the vivid flashing casino displays. Sara's night shift tendencies meant that she rarely felt tired when night rolled around, she was so used to simply sleeping whenever the opportunity arose. She'd been filing the last of the evidence on Catherine's case of Christina Adalian, putting the last details into their boxes and folders, and she'd heard the news that they'd found the killer, the mother of Kerri Johnson. She'd been surprised but in truth, the whole case had been a surprise. A virgin mother, an adopted embryo, it all sounded insane. She shook her head with disbelief just at the idea, as she strode down the corridor towards the break room, passing the locker room. In the corner of her eye she saw Warrick and Nick coming in for the start of their shift and she doubled back.

Nick smiled as he saw her enter, peering from behind his locker door. "Do I spy Sara Sidle heading home?" he enquired humorously, with his usual Southern drawl and his boyish grin, pulling on his LVPD vest as she spoke. Warrick turned from where he was sat on the bench and gave Sara an understated nod, far more in keeping with his reserved character. "Seems so unfair when we're just getting started," Nick jested further, closing his locker with care and leaning against it with arms folded in mock indignation.

Sara gave him her sideways smirk. "I'm done. I'll be back in soon enough." She retorted jokily, casting Warrick a smile. He then rolled his eyes at Nick's humour, sorting his own kit as his partners conversed.

"419 in a warehouse, lots of blood according to the guy who called it in. You know you want to!" Nick continued, picking up a file from the bench and waving it tantalisingly in front of her face. She didn't rise to the bait and he lowered it with a laugh. "Come on Warrick, let's go find Brass and have some fun." He signalled to Warrick, who sighed and rolled his eyes with a mild smirk in Sara's direction. He clicked his case shut and stood upright.

"How exciting." Warrick responded in an unenthused manner. He nodded at Sara as he strode out of the door past her. "See you later."

Sara bade them farewell and good luck on their case, as they gathered their wares and headed out into the field, prepared from their day off and ready to investigate, unlike Sara. She moved instead to the break room, desperate for a cup of coffee. The room was empty, a raw reminder that the team rarely had that many breaks, and often when they did gather there it was to discuss work. As she grabbed Greg's pot of coffee that had been freshly made. He had left only a short while earlier, having done most of the lab paperwork and worked a draining double. Greg was well and truly a CSI, removed from the rigid time-keeping of those in the lab alone. With CSI, the rota was more of a suggestion than a schedule.

She glanced at the notice board that kept them updated on the workings of the lab and the LVPD. The schedule gave her the night off and she was glad of that, being able to spend her evening at home with her TV in her pyjamas made her feel like a normal professional woman, with a regular work life. Not that she wanted it, but sometimes the relief was what she craved, just to be able to forget her career for a while and let it just become another generic office job. She had also seen that Grissom was supposed to have been working along with Nick and Warrick, but since he'd spent the day in court over the case that was of personal interest to the undersheriff, she suspected Ecklie had amended that.

In fact, she hadn't heard how it had gone in court, only stopping in to Grissom's assessment on the pig footage for a moment to enquire into his work. He'd been glad to see her for a moment, she had been able to tell from his expression but his work had been more pressing and her case was calling so she headed back to her research on the Sunflower Foundation. She held her coffee cup tighter and made her way back down the lab corridors to Grissom's office. She saw as she approached the other end of the lab that Catherine's door was open and she could hear a conversation between her and Grissom. She poked her head around the doorframe.

"So the undersheriff's sorting everything?" Catherine was enquiring, sat cross-legged on her desk chair, surrounded by the day staff's paraphernalia that was littered across the other desks in the room. Her strawberry-blonde hair was loosely layered over her shoulders and as always she looked pristine and well-groomed. Grissom did too, he was stood across from her in his suit with his hands screwed in his pockets in his usual debriefing nature. Sara could see him nod from behind him, moving to stand in full view in the doorway. "Oh hey Sara!" Catherine greeted her. "All loose ends tied up?" she queried. Sara confirmed they were then turned to Grissom, aware of the necessity for the pair of them to appear professional and casual, even though the tension between them had been escalating since their discussion in the park the previous day. She now had his word that there was a kiss in the balance between them.

"How was court?" she asked him, aware of how hard he'd been working to disprove the entomologists statement but unsure how it'd panned out in court. She'd been in those pressurised situations, where every single word could sway just one jury member, everything could change the outcome in that dark little room. She suspected Grissom had been fine, he had been entirely focused when she'd stumble into his work earlier, studying a sea of photos of a dead pig so much so that Sara had hardly managed to tweeze out of him what he was even trying to work out.

"Good." Grissom nodded. "Mr Thayer won't be giving evidence in any cases for some time." He added. He was obviously pleased with his success, and corruption was just like all the other evils he tackled in his work; intolerable. Yet Sara knew this was a bonus in truth, his real success had just been in solving the mystery of that video. The steely determination she had witnessed earlier was not due really to the pressure from the undersheriff, but rather the mystery of the puzzle. The mystery was always what drove Gil and he was always glad to solve it. Still, Sara adored the cockiness that was absent from his demeanour and his expression. Cockiness that would usually be inevitable with Grissom's level of intelligence. Yet that was how Grissom was, his intelligence overrode all of his emotions.

"And the undersheriff is saving Grissom's neck in return." Catherine interjected with a grin. Sara nodded, acknowledging the undersheriff's influence on the bureaucracy of their job. Grissom struggled with that side of his work as a supervisor. He was a scientist, not an administrator. Sara understood this as well as the others; Grissom would always put the practical side of things over the reams of forms Ecklie required. Grissom was the kind of investigator that Sara admired, that Sara wanted to be. Although right now, she didn't feel like seeing Grissom the investigator, she wanted to spend some time with Gil. The contrast between him in and out of the lab was subtle, possibly due to how much his work had consumed his life, but even the slightest change made Sara warm to Grissom even more, seeing a side of him that she was almost certain he had showed to few others.

"So we can all stop worrying about our team reviews." Catherine added with a smile, gathering her files up and making to stand up. "Not to kick you guys out, but I'm heading out after Nick and Warrick to that warehouse. I'll see you both tomorrow." She announced, gesturing for the door. Grissom offered to assist her but she assured him they could cope without him. She glanced at them both before she headed out past them, then paused in the corridor and turned back towards them. "Both of you should spend your night off somewhere other than the lab you know, just for once." She advised them casually, but Sara was aware of the more serious tone underneath her mockery. She contemplated this as Catherine walked away, leaving the two of them stood in the entrance to her office, with their arms folded in silence.

.After a moment, Grissom glanced up to Sara. "Dinner at my place?" he shrugged nonchalantly.

Sara smiled broadly. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

><p>Grissom rifled through the small assortment of foods in his fridge, his eyes squinting at the bright light that seemed harsher in the dim illumination of his lamps in the midnight townhouse where him and Sara had finally ended their busy day. Although it was hardly rifling, the stark lack of items meant that he was simply looking for anything useful. He barely spent any time at home these days, meaning cooking was something he did rarely. And shopping, even less frequently. He glanced over his fridge door at Sara, who was sat at his kitchen table, flicking through a novel he'd left there that morning. He'd been halfway through Homer's Iliad for about a month, his leisurely reading stunted by his favour for scientific pieces. Still, he'd attempted a page before being called to the case that morning, and it had been left open on his table. Not that it was urgent. He'd read it before. Yet like the cases they worked, he often found hidden links and insights on a recap. It was like discovering a lead that you'd missed the first time round, another chance to decipher the events and the meaning.<p>

Sara looked up from the novel and peered over her shoulder at Grissom. It occurred to him to look away in embarrassment of how he had been studying her. The curve of her fingers as they traced the inked words on the pages and their slender dance as she turned the pages had entranced him for a moment. The slightest thing she did he studied in intimate and rigorous detail. Instead she smiled at him and slowly stood up, the silence in the room evident and heavy in an inviting comfortable manner. She moved to peer into the fridge.

"You're not particularly well-stocked then?" she enquired with a smirk, glancing into his sparsely filled fridge by leaning in front of his standing form. Even the arch of her back was beautiful to him. Not that he said that, instead he replied with his simple no response and peered into the fridge next to her. She cast him a brief sideways look, acknowledging how close they were for a split second. Then she reached in and pulled out an egg box, straightening up and opening it to reveal two speckled eggs nestled there. "Omelette it is then." She concluded. Grissom moved to take the box from her to start cooking himself but she avoided his hand. "I think I can take care of this." She assured him playfully, with a smile. "But be warned I'm not the best cook."

"Very few are." Grissom responded instantly, taking the literal meaning of her statement. She laughed and began to open and close his cupboards methodically searching for the equipment she needed. Grissom found she needed little assistance. She picked the same bowl Grissom would have used out of his large collection of crockery, he noted with vague amusement. Around 10 minutes or so later she pulled her chair up to the table, presenting Grissom with cutlery.

"I think that's the most feminine thing I've done all month." She laughed as she picked up her own knife and began to cut her omelette. She glanced at the book she had been frequenting a while before and looked up to Grissom "Greek epics?" she enquired then after she finished her mouthful. Grissom laughed and contemplated the idea. "Inspired by the mythology?" she joked with a smile.

"In fact, Homer was more remarkable for his literary work than mythology, although most of his myths are what everyone remembers today." Grissom explained. "Like Cyclops." He added with a smile. "The mathematicians were the ones that dealt with the myths and philosophy. It's been said that Western philosophical tradition could be entirely seen as a series of footnotes to Plato."

"And I always thought it was the artists that were the romantic deep thinkers." Sara smiled, taking another forkful of omelette. Even the way she ate was fascinating to Grissom, he couldn't help studying her. Every moment, he felt obsessive but he couldn't help himself. Even her chewing was adorable to him.

"In those days, maths was art. And in fact, there's a Greek legend that Plato wrote about, stating that originally humans were created with 4 arms, 4 legs and 2 faces. And Zeus was so scared of the human's power that he split them in half, forever condemning them to a life searching for their other halves." Grissom explained. He found himself slowing on his words contemplating their significance to his own life. Of course, it was a highly romanticised idea, but in truth, he had never felt as whole as he did with Sara. Even when he was teaching and investigating and filled with the science that glutted him, he never felt the same sense of wellbeing and total content as he felt with her. He paused for a moment, shaking the thought from his head as he silenced his information with a mouthful.

Sara grinned. "How's that search going for you?" she joked. She was as aware as he was of how serious their relationship was. As much as they shrouded it behind humour and friendship, Grissom could never quite shake the graveness of their situation for long. In truth he felt like a being that had found his other face. He didn't believe in soul mates but he believed in the intense connection between two people. Not infatuation, their previous friendship meant that the physical intimacy between them was undermined by their in depth understanding of each other. Perhaps that was the deep connection he felt, the complexity of his feelings for her. Attraction, admiration, adoration.

He paused for a moment. In fact, his search had never been going any better regardless of what could happen in their futures. He wrinkled his eyes at the corner in an imitation of a smile at Sara who raised her eyebrows inquisitively at him, probing for an answer. He sighed and replied simply through his next mouthful. "Good."

* * *

><p>Grissom finished and placed his cutlery in the middle of his plate in keeping with manners. Sara soon did the same, her eating pace slower than her male companion as he pointed out was normal for a lady when she commented. She felt amusingly feminine that evening, when she would usually only cook for herself and that was when she ever had the time, she added as a jest as she pushed her chair back across Grissom's practical stone floor and then moved to clear the plates. He reached for her hand to stop her.<p>

"You don't need to do that." He insisted, taking her hand and pulling it towards his chest. The move that had seemed so daring just a week or so before now felt natural and exciting, just to have her hand gripped in affection by Gil. She smirked and teased it out of his grasp and continued.

"I know." She replied simply, still unable to disguise her usual sideways smile. "It's fine. I'll just put them in the sink." She insisted, taking Grissom's plate and stacking it on top of her own.

"Thank you." Gil responded. His voice was slightly quieter than would have been his usual tone and Sara suspected that it was not just an expression of his appreciation for dinner but for much more. She wasn't sure what for, whether it was for her company, for her work or maybe for waiting for him. Whatever it was, she felt that there was no need for her to be thanked, it was impossible for her to imagine leaving Gil now she had finally found her way through the impenetrable layers of work and science and complexity to the man underneath.

She moved quickly into his kitchen area, still aware of his eyes on her. She was unsurprised to find the whole place clear and tidy and even less surprised to see unusual plants that were tucked across his windowsill, with odd leaves on the worktop that they had shed. She put the plates down in the sink and paused for a minute, leaning against the worktop with her palms. Her cheeks seemed entirely incapable of not stretching into a smile at Grissom's answer to her question. Of course it was ludicrous, she didn't believe in soul mates and they had hardly even taken any tentative steps towards a relationship, a fact of which Sara was only too aware of. But the very idea that Grissom was considering a future with her was enough to make her beam uncontrollably. She didn't want Grissom to see her excitement, feeling embarrassed at her reaction as if she was a teenager that had been asked to the prom by her crush.

Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by Grissom moving into the kitchen behind her. She was acutely aware as always of his every move around her in the narrow kitchen, the hush between instantly escalating the tension between them as he said nothing as he moved closer, not slowly but with determinedly. There was a clink of a mug on the granite worktop as he set down his. Sara could feel her heart beat escalating just standing there, listening to him move behind her. She didn't want to glance back to see where he was, relying on all her other senses to formulate his movements, the heavy fall of his feet released of his boots.

As he moved to stand right behind her, involuntarily she could feel her own body mould instantaneously to his form against her. The scent of him that she was becoming so familiar came in a wave as she felt his head come parallel to hers, feeling intoxicated. His broad hands moved to rest on the worktop either side of her, and although she felt no restraint, she was aware that he had her pinned against the counter. There was welling passion but that was almost underpinned by the immense sense of intimacy Sara felt, that she always felt towards Grissom. Yet now it was rising in her chest, in her skin that sparked at every touch from Grissom, at the scratch of his beard as it met Sara's neck in adoration.

Then his hushed voice, like air gently escaping from a long pressurised space reached her right ear. "Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service." He whispered, the warmth of his breath caressing her. She knew of course that he was quoting, Shakespeare she judged from the words, but could not stir herself to question him so enraptured was she in his words as if he still spoke. Slowly, she turned to face Grissom, allowing her eyes to adjust to see the man before her. His words meant that he had always felt as she did; a soulful attraction beyond basic physicality, beyond even small talk. Even from the beginning, he was as entranced as she was. And now finally, finally, they had come here.

* * *

><p>Sara slowly turned to face him, the light from behind him turning onto her face like the earth moving into the sunlight after the dark night. He paused with his hands still resting on the worktop either side of her, her fingertips touching his where she rested her own hands parallel. She had never looked so beautiful, he felt he could not fail to study her more, to record every perfect strand of amber light in her irises, every pore on her flawless skin that looked kissed by the gentle flattering light. His quote from Shakespeare's Tempest had felt embarrassing in thought but in truth, he found the words were remarkably and unavoidably applicable. Watching her in front of him, he knew that if he believed in the metaphorical importance of the heart, his would be entirely at her service.<p>

He felt he could not resist his urge to just glance her face any longer and raised his hands to rest on her perfectly defined jawbone, the tips of his fingers barely touching her air-soft skin making them tingle with electricity, whilst he could almost feel her scent around him, subtle yet engaging that suited her so perfectly. She was so...he couldn't even find words. In fact, for once, Grissom had no words, even in his head. There were no scientific comments, no thought processes, he was entirely and totally engaged in simply looking and feeling and absorbing the moment he was in, with her. The sides of her lips, poised perfectly as if breathless in their intensity, pursed slightly into a smile at the very edges, perhaps in embarrassment of his obviously adoration of her. Yet he could not help himself, the very beams from her eyes drew him closer to her without realising until their noses glanced the others gently. Every strand of hair seemed to frame her face perfectly, as leaves around the bud of a flower.

They were close enough that every breath between them would be mutual, yet neither seemed to have any to spare as breath and time and anything outside of the dimly lit room faded away from their consciousness. Sara was still resting on her hands on the worktop but leaning closer towards him as his hands moved to cup her face ensuring no inch of her beauty was obscured from him. The air between them seemed to ignite, as it narrowed and Gil finally found his lips found their greatest resting place on hers.


End file.
